Writing Creatively
by SharlynRose
Summary: Some things I have learned when writing creatively. A little writing advice, and story snippets within, written for a creative writing class. Hope it helps.
1. Setting the Scene: a sense of place

**Setting the Scene: A sense of place**

When writing your story it is very important to set the scene. Setting the scene helps to hook people in and grab their attention. It helps if you are aware of the sort of novel/story you are going to write.

For example, Bram Stoker's Dracula was written as though it is factual because it begins as a travel log. By setting the scene in this way, what comes later is a complete surprise.

Another example is Ernest Hemingway's True At First Light. His description of the scene is very to the point, and focuses on showing the emotions of someone receiving land.

By contrast, Cormac McCarthy has a lengthy approach. He uses very long sentences in order to create a gradual build up.

Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love is very short on description and is focused (for example) on her meeting of Giovanni. This shows that her story is focused on people rather than places.

A simple description that draws you in may be best. You can also use dialogue to set up people in a situation, which puts you right into the story immediately.

For setting the scene – it is good to describe the place. For setting up the people – dialogue can be good, especially for action and thriller stories.

Task: Choose a location that becomes important to the story. Is it a murder scene? There might be clues there that the reader will relate back to later in the story. Is it a romance story? Set the scene for love to blossom. Is it a horror story? Maybe the scene is deceptively tranquil (like Dracula). Use a description that suits your genre.

Have your hero/heroine at the location and write it from their point of view. Another character that is important to the story must come in. You may use dialogue here. Is the second character a friend, lover or enemy?

Read my attempt, and have a go for yourself! Here is what I managed in fifteen minutes (writing by hand I might add!).

_Snow fell thickly into the clearing, where a lone house stood. The sky was darkening quickly as it shed its heavy load._

_The large, grey house was silent and still. No signs of life were apparent. Evergreen trees surrounded the house, dense forest sprawling around it._

_The snow was beginning to pile up against the sides of the house and on the banks sloping upward toward the tree-line._

_No birds sang, and no animals shuffled by. Everything was just white silence._

_Suddenly, an icy cold wind picked up, sending mad flurries of snow in every direction. Snow was blinding me, as I lay on the bank. Chest deep in snow, I looked down at the miserable house._

_Despite the cold, my palms were sweating as I clutched at the heavy rifle in my hands. My hands shook as I hurriedly snatched my gloves out of my pocket to put them back on, lest the rifle should slip from my grasp._

_I hunkered down, closer to the ground as I surveyed the area, my padded coat the only thing stopping me from being completely frozen._

_I shuddered as snow slid down my neck, fighting the urge to yell._

_The assault on the back of my neck distracted me for a moment, and I almost missed the low sound of the purr of an engine._

_I raised my head slightly, better to see what had broken the tranquil silence. A four by four slowly entered the clearing, the rumble of its engine seemed so loud against the eerie quiet, and the dirty tracks it left defiled the pure white snow._

_A figure stepped out of the car and immediately I levelled my rifle, ready to take aim. It was a woman, tall and graceful, as she navigated her way around to the other side of the car, snow coming high up her black boots._


	2. The Structure and Development of a Story

**The structure and development of a story: beginnings, middle and ends.**

Stories are about something happening, and can be anything as long as it engages the reader/listener until the end. Usually they are about a person, and their reaction to some event which has either been set in train by them, by design or by accident, or external events which affect them deeply (like being caught up in a parent's divorce, or an earthquake). What happens to someone and what are the consequences?

My short-hand way of identifying the core of a story is, 'The day the world changed.'

A person on their own is a description. A person caught up in something e.g. 9/11 is the start of a story. What happens next is the story.

Stories need a central character – not necessarily a conventional hero: the Greek word, which makes no judgement on whether they are good or bad, is protagonist, the person who makes the action, the 'agon', happen.

This character is the one the audience will identify with or watch with most care: Macbeth or Richard the Third are central characters where we are not expected to identify with them, but we should find them fascinating.

The action which they undertake or face, presents them with a challenge. This may be general, a fight against society, but again most stories crystallise this down to a point of opposition, an antagonist or series of antagonists, each more powerful than the last. Wozzeck fights society but it has a number of different personifications. The protagonist must take action otherwise they are a passive character, taking action will affect their surroundings.

The character will not be the same before and after the event – there will be a shift in time, events and character.

The opposition can seem inanimate: the point of 'Touching the Void' is the internal struggle of the men on the mountain, but also the way the mountain itself challenges them. However, story-telling usually manages to infuse human characteristics – malevolence, resolution, beauty, forgiveness – even into lumps of rock and ice. They become an antagonist.(also see 'Duel')

The challenge can be absurd: Gregor wakes up as a cockroach. It can be monumental: survival itself, in Pincher Martin, or it can be social: the necessity of marrying off Mr Bennett's daughters. But for whatever reason, TODAY is the day that challenge must be met.

The antagonist may not necessarily be a villain, it doesn't have to be good vs. evil, it can be two good people with opposing view points.

The protagonist has wants and desires and must face a challenge of some sort. They figure out how to get to their goal: the antagonist gets in their way.

It adds depth to the main character because they need to be fighting for something really important (or at least, important to them). We need to see the reasons why there is a relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist. The challenge can be anything e.g. being different to everyone else, looking for something etc. The story won't go anywhere without a challenge.

**The Beginning **

The point at which the story starts, NOT where your character starts.

In 'Adaptation' by Charlie Kaufmann, he takes the mickey out of the writers' in-joke about asking when the story starts: "The planet cools from a globe of molten rock, volcanoes erupt, dinosaurs walk the earth –"

The temptation is to start with the beginning of your main character, a blow by blow account of family, school etc. But this is not the beginning of your story.

Even in a biographical story like Nicholas Nickleby, Dickens knows when to fast-forward over the boring bits, and give enough detail to set up the character of his protagonist, to get to the bits that really matter (and gives us lots of other stories and incidents along the way). In Great Expectations, the early days section is integral to understanding how Pip sees the world, and sets the action in train with Estella.

The beginnings of your character are only interesting as far as they set the scene for the action, and in the tradition of 'show not tell', why put them all in a lump at the beginning? What do we know about Hamlet, other than that he is a prince? Don't stuff your beginnings with your notes on character and background; they are working tools, not the work itself.

What is so special about TODAY. A screenwriter's phrase is, 'the inciting incident", although don't feel obliged to make the something big or even an action. It could be a letter arriving – or a rumour, that a rich young man is moving to the neighbourhood (Pride and Prejuduce). But something makes the story start.

Anything before that is just background. So put it there, to be drawn on as required.

**The Middle**

The tricky bit. This is where the REALLY BIG PROBLEMS come, usually because the writer has not planned out the line of the story – or narrative arc, if you're being fancy – so he knows where his characters are going and how they get there.

The risk is that you have this really terrific opening – Sam Goldwyn's earthquake – but you fail to build up to a climax after that. In drama, it's the second scene problem, in novels it's the second chapter. The second whatever is where the story, set up in the initial moment, has to pick up the narrative threads without going back over old ground, or assuming knowledge the audience does not yet have.

Strictly, the middle is the bridge by which the problem or challenge set up in the first section is worked through until the end is a logical extension of what has gone before. It is the mathematical workings in the equation: in the words of your maths teacher, show me how, don't just give me the answer.

You need a spicy start. But spend a LOT longer working out your middle than your end, because that is the meat of your story.

**The End**

Ends are a what, a how or a why. The end is the point at which nothing else can happen.

This is what happens when a man lets his jealousy outrun his sense: Othello. This is what happens when a plain girl sticks to her principles: Jane Eyre.

This is how a man who was crippled by ethical dilemmas justified his life, and revenged his father – Hamlet. This is how love is torn apart by the political demands of society which does not regard personal feelings; Romeo and Juliet.

And that is why – the elephant has its trunk, the bridge is called Devil's Leap, the stone over there is Wayland's Smithy –

The end is the pay-off and must satisfy the audience; a 'good death' as in Hamlet, a love recognised, as in Romeo and Juliet, a rationale for a familiar object or place. An end that tails off because the writer does not have the balls to kill/celebrate/ruin/marry their character, is a poor one. But you don't have to carve their gravestone because -

**In media res**

A Latin tag, it means 'in the middle of things'. Good stories start a long way into the action, so that we see the exciting bits early, and get swept up in events. As a rule, start your story as LATE as possible and end it as EARLY as possible.

Don't be tempted to tie everything up with a pink ribbon: the third film of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is a good example of not being able to finish the ruddy thing off.

In Hamlet, Shakespeare could have started with Hamlet the student, cue much horsing around with Horatio, a Prince Hal type who then hears that his father has died: or starting even earlier, painted a picture of Hamlet in a happy family, the talented prince and apple of his parents' eyes, building him up as a hero. All very nice and great US daytime movie stuff, but not the interesting bit.

He could have started with a murder: Claudius proving himself a villain, a sort of Columbo approach. Exciting, but then who is the story about? Hamlet is not the cause of the murder or directly involved, so the focus goes to Claudius.

Shakespeare had an advantage as he is working in the revenge tragedy tradition, where a terrible crime is discovered and then has to be revenged no matter what, and his audience know this. So he goes straight to the evidence; the ghost. The crime has happened: the story is how Hamlet reacts to this. And even here, we start in the middle: he has already been alerted, and already has suspicions. (And what he was supposed to do, in the tradition, was the Arnold Schwarzenegger version in Last Action Hero. These Hollywood types know their stuff.)

The story ends when Hamlet does. We don't discover whether Fortinbras was a good king or a bad one, or where Hamlet is buried. The only reason why Fortinbras is there at all is to get all the bodies off the stage; Shakespeare wanted his massive dramatic effect as all the main characters die, but then had a little practical problem on a stage with no curtain. He would have loved a black-out! And what if Hamlet had lived – what could he be, but a huge let-down?

In a modern staging, you could end it even earlier, when we know that both the drink and the sword are poisoned, and that Hamlet has been nicked with the sword – by this time we can fill in the dots about what happens next: cut to silent scene of dead bodies everywhere.

The beginning is the closest point we can get to the real action, and the end is where we can see the resolution of that action.

**But not necessarily in that order**

In drama it is hard to keep going into flashback, but it is eminently possible in a novel. In 'Rebecca' the story is almost all in flashback; 'The first time I saw Manderley' etc.

Stories can be told in reverse, at the risk of confusing the audience, or from start to finish (at the risk of boring the audience who are waiting for the exciting bit), or with the EXCITING BIT FIRST at the risk of a slump into the second scene. All have their advantages and disadvantages.

A writer has the choice of how to present their story, and the duty to maintain interest and momentum throughout.

The audience is only ever going to be interested in the exciting bit, because that is THE STORY. So the first job is to identify it, and maybe the story isn't where you thought it would be –

When you tell your story to someone else, who is it that they want to know more about? Why is that character interesting? Just because a character is good and noble and handsome and (yawn) – doesn't make them a protagonist. Find your character and their story, and then choose how to present it.

It may help to map out your story using a diagram, or whatever way suits you. Either way, know what challenges your protagonist will face and how they will overcome them; find a shape to your story.

Example:

Fred is 30, and a lawyer. He is defending his lover who is also his secretary. (_Here there is immediate emotional tension; he has a lot to lose)._

She is accused of murdering her husband.

Her name is Violet and at this point, she seems very fragile and Fred is concerned she won't survive prison.

Fred's immediate goal: acquittal: he has rescued her.

Other goals: to be with her.

**Antagonist:** _Crown Prosecution Service_

_ Head of Chambers _– not supposed to be having a relationship with someone who is an employee, a married woman and the defendant.

_ Justice_ – requires Violet to be truly innocent. If she is guilty she has to go down (in his lawyer perspective, his respect for justice). This is an internal antagonist.

Fred must defend the woman he loves but be aware of his antagonists. He also needs to square it with his conscience. You may use past examples of his commitment to justice in order to show the type of man he is.

**Inciting incident** – the murder. Sets events in motion. This is really where the story starts.

Start with an 'earthquake' and then build up to the climax. The 'earthquake' should be fairly early on.

The end must come back down to the original goal.

Implying is a good way to end, e.g. in Hamlet, swords and chalices are poisoned, it implies that they will die.

Keep your focus on the fact that it's the central characters story. It ends with them.

Finish as early as you dare, don't try to lace everything up.

**Do a structural analysis:**

Motivations and relationships

Things that push them together and things that pull them apart

Differences and similarities between main characters.

It helps if you know your character inside out. Maybe create a spider diagram and around it write all the details of your character: personality, looks, job, childhood etc.

Your character should be a different person at the end, with something revealed about your protagonist.


	3. A Ghost Story

**A Ghost Story**

Ghost stories need a subtle build up, where the reader feels initially safe but also in a state of anticipation, in known territory and identifying with the character. A successful ghost story relies on the 'it could happen to anyone' factor. Aware that it is a ghost story, the reader is alert and waiting for the first clue that 'something is wrong'.

The first few clues are ones that make the hero or heroine vaguely uneasy, but not seriously alarmed. Readers KNOW they should be alarmed and are in suspense. This feeds on all those times we've told ourselves, "Oh, I'm worrying about nothing."

A ghost is usually attached to a place or an object that the hero or heroine comes into contact with by chance; an old house, an inherited or found object, or a mirror or television that reflects another world, or locations where the hero or heroine arrive by chance, for example; in a broken down car, or an unexpected stop at a station on a railway journey.

The hero or heroine unwittingly meddles with, or angers the ghost in some way. They are seen to bring about their fate, but their punishment is disproportionate.

The only escape is to discover how to appease or conquer the ghost. Your narrator can be an observer, witnessing the destruction of the less fortunate, or the more guilty party. To succeed against a ghost, your character needs to decipher and meet the ghost's demands.

Survival is only achieved through persistence and moral strength. A third party, like a knowledgeable Priest, a Vampire Slayer, or an Occultist, a person with superior spiritual knowledge, is called in to assist with conquering the ghost.

Ghost stories do not always end happily. Sometimes the hero or heroine escape, or are in fact helped or rescued by the ghost. Sometimes, they may believe they have succeeded, but just as they think they are safe, back comes the ghost, now an invincible force of destruction. By implication, a ghost or demon, once roused to anger, is unstoppable through human means.

HOW TO STRUCTURE YOUR STORY:

**BEGINNING**

SETTING/CHARACTER/PROBLEM

**COMPLICATION**

TENSION INTENSIFIES

**DEVELOPMENT**

CHARACTER MUST RISE TO CHALLENGE

**ULTIMATE CHALLENGE/TWIST**

HOW CHARACTER MEETS NEW DANGER AND TRIUMPHS/FAILS

**RESOLUTION**

FINAL MOMENTS/ALL IS MADE CLEAR

**END SENTENCE**

TASK: Set the scene for your ghost story, so that the reader feels initially safe, then pass your paper on to the person on your left so that they can continue you what you have written, and from here we will receive the first clues that something is not quite right.

Okay, so if you are doing this on your own, you can just have a go at setting the scene and the build up etc. Below you can see what I did (I didn't get to keep the original scene setting that I wrote, what you see here is what was passed on to me by the guy sitting next to me). My part is in italics.

It was a cloud and crisp February morning, the sun was bright and high in the sky but weak and far from warming.

Jane was walking Frankie, her little dog, across the common. Frankie was a West Highland Terrier, but despite being in need of a trip to the groomers and well wrapped up in his little winter jacket, he was feeling the cold. Jane was walking quite briskly, and Frankie was plodding along behind her, probably wishing that today's walk would be shorter than usual.

Jane had a lot on her mind so Frankie was likely to be in for a shock. Her life was a mess; she hated her job and she felt all of the fun had gone out of her life. Nothing ever happened to her; Christmas had come and gone, and here she was, alone on Valentines Day… AGAIN.

_Jane marched on, half dragging Frankie behind her. She was feeling quite annoyed that he wanted to stop and sniff everything in sight. As she approached the woods at the far end of the common, she pondered for a moment. Normally at this point she would stop and go home._

'_What the hell!' she thought to herself. It wasn't as if she had anything or anyone to hurry home for._

_Pulling her hat closer over her head, she stepped into the tree-line. Immediately she found herself immersed in gloom, the thickness of the trees filtering out most of the sunlight. She glanced back longingly to where she had entered, the sunlight looked warm and inviting. She carried on, regardless, hoping to see maybe a deer or something. As the trees became denser, it became gloomier, and so cold there was a light fog surrounding her. Frankie was very quiet all of a sudden, trotting close to her heels. She glanced down at him as the damp leaves squelched under foot._

_Suddenly, a shadow darted out in front of them and disappeared into the distance. Frankie went crazy; yapping and straining on his lead, wanting to get after the shadow._

_Jane suddenly felt extremely cold – not cold like she was before from the weather, but deeply chilled to her core; the hairs on her arms and back of her neck were standing on end._

_A high-pitched wail pierced the gloom._

_Alarmed, Jane began heading in the direction of the mournful wail, heart pounding. Frankie shied away, resisting Jane's tugging. _

'_Come on Frankie,' she huffed. 'Someone might be hurt, be a good boy for mummy.'_

_Sighing, she took a treat out of her pocket and tossed it to him. He relented, and together they hurried deeper into the eerie woods._

_After ten minutes of walking and still no sign of the wailer, Jane realised she hadn't seen another person since she had left the common. This was a well known dog walking spot, always lots of people coming and going. _

_She heard no sounds either, just deafening silence. No birds sang, the trees did not even rustle in the wind._

_She carried on, starting to feel slightly nervous and wondering if she ought to turn back. She glanced around her, noticing that the fog had thickened and that it was going to be really difficult to find her way back._

_Bizarrely, a small wooden house was just barely visible in the near distance. Jane frowned. There were no houses in these woods, people didn't live here. Curious by nature, Jane decided to go see who lived there, not pausing to think that it might be dangerous._

_As she got closer, she realised it was a lot more like a shed than a house. She knocked loudly at the rotting wooden door, making herself jump as she broke the eerie silence of the woods. She waited patiently for a few moments, and then knocked again, more quietly this time. The door slowly creaked open, but nobody stood there._

_Nervously, she stepped over the threshold, her boots thumping on the wood. _

'_Hello? Any one home?' she called out, peering into the dark room before her. Just as she took another step, the door slammed shut behind her, making her scream._

'_Just the wind,' she thought, trying to reassure herself. She pulled at the lead in her hand, to urge Frankie along. The lead met with no resistance. She looked down – Frankie was gone._


	4. A Writer's Tool Box

**A Writer's Tool Box - Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation**

These are all, to some extent, governed by conventions, and conventions change. Grammatical usages and words do change and have done over our own life spans, and they will continue to do so.

Grammar as developed in other parts of the English-speaking world differs from UK usage, but that does not make it 'wrong'. Many usages which now appear in slang were once perfectly acceptable: and vice versa. Words die and are born all the time

The important thing to keep in mind is that grammar, usage, punctuation and consistent spelling have one purpose: to communicate meaning clearly. This is why readers for publishers and agents are fierce about grammar and spelling: ungrammatical and slopping English shows that the writer does not have the basic tools of the trade, and cannot be bothered to learn them. By not paying attention to these things, you put yourself at a disadvantage.

Also, most people in publishers are very, very, intelligent and educated – it's where a lot a of OxBridge Firsts in English end up – so giving them a badly written piece of work is almost a personal affront.

Logic – the way language is constructed.

Convention – who or whom?

Spelling – partly phonetic, mostly not.

Punctuation – logic now, previously convention.

**Grammar**

Formal grammar is a shibboleth for some people but it is a fairly recent development in European languages. When all serious literature, laws, diplomacy etc was in Latin, the idea of a grammar for the speech of the common people would have seemed very odd. Formal grammar goes with writing; spoken languages have 'usages' rarely rules.

Grammar is a natural part of the logic of language; it helps us decide who is speaking about what, and that is why it is important. When there are two things that could be the subject of a sentence or of an action, grammar tells us which it is. But the formal structures developed in the nineteenth century were also direct copies of the 'rules' of Latin grammar, to make German, French, English etc as 'respectable' as Latin.

Until travel became easier, the fact that people in different parts of a country not only spoke different dialects but different languages, was not a problem as long as the top people had a 'lingua franca' – usually Latin. In most European countries, until very recently, very few people spoke the language of the Court: in France, as late as the 1870s, only 15% of the population spoke Parisian French. In Spain today, there are at least five languages in common use.

Formal grammars started to be developed in the eighteenth century on the back of nation-building, so that a single national language could be developed and taught. The Grimm brothers set down the 'rules' – the accepted conventions – for German in the 1820s and 30s and were most famous for this in their time. A similar process is going on in China at the moment.

But grammars were also developed because the Romans had them. Not many citizens of Rome, let alone their trading partners, spoke Latin as a mother tongue. Many Emperors were born outside Italy, and even inside Italy, only a small proportion of people in Latium spoke Latin. But to get on in politics, you needed to be an orator in Rome, and so you needed to learn the 'correct' usage. However note that even in Latin, usages and grammar changes significantly over time: formal Latin of the second century BC is different from Latin in the year 350 AD.

The kind of grammatical problems that make readers see red are the logical ones, not whether you say 'who' or 'to whom'. Over-precise grammar can actually get in the way of communication: as Churchill said once, "that is the kind of thing up with which I will not put!" (he was joking). Grammar is not about 'speaking proper' but thinking clearly.

If it is not clear who or what a sentence is about; if it is full of howlers of the 'eats, shoots and leaves' variety; if there is no logic to the sequence of words within a sentence, or to the clauses in a sentence, or to the way sentences follow each other in a paragraph, this shows a confused mind that does not have a proper grasp of the tools of their trade.

**Spelling**

Spelling formalises once a language is written down, but it tends to freeze once it starts to be printed, because words become symbols as well as representations of sound.

Until the fifteenth century in England, how you spelled a written word very much depended on how the local scribe pronounced it, so local dialects had an impact. But spelling was also pragmatic, so early spelling is often more logical then later conventions:

Cough: coghe, kuchen

Through: thurh, thruh (in 1300)

Thorough: thorowe

Although: all though, thoh,

Thought: thoht

Spelling started to be 'improved' in the sixteenth century. I suspect because it made English words look more like Latin or French ones: it is not because pronunciation changed, because in these cases, it did not, by much.

The major change came with printing, because printers are creatures of habit. Having spelt 'thought' that way once, they will do it every time because it saves time. Spellings can also 'freeze' a word or pronunciation when the spoken usage moves on. The village of Trottiscliffe is now always pronounced 'Trosley': the spelling is now a convention which does not represent speech.

Spelling can also affect pronunciation. If a word becomes popular in its written form, but was not commonly spoken, people will assume its pronunciation from the spelling. How do you pronounce 'combat'? Or 'golf'?

Spelling of unknown names tends to migrate to known ones: Mrs Malaprop did it for comic effect, where alligator becomes allegory, but for example, how do you spell the name of a white globular vegetable from the Near East, and what do you call it? The man who is selling it to you calls it albadinjan. We now call it 'aubergine'.

Once spelling has 'frozen' it becomes a convention and this can be useful. English is full of words that sound alike but, because they are spelled differently, can be used for different purposes: they are known as 'homonyms'. Several meanings for the price of one sound! We use their place in the sentence to decide which they are when hearing them, but there should be no doubt in written forms.

There – their – they're

To – two – too

Carrot – Carat – Caret

Saw – sore – saw

Spelling these days follows the conventions because it forms part of the logical structure of a sentence. Do you mean 'their', 'there' or 'they're'? You should know, to prevent confusion in your reader.

And once you've learned the 'correct' spelling, it is difficult and annoying to have to adapt to others; it slows the reader down. This is why dialect is so hard to read: you are not recognising a symbol but having to work out the sound, then translate back into a recognisable word.

**Punctuation**

It's those printers again. Latin and Greek texts were written for the very few literate people at the time, and in Latin, the verb shows you where the end of each sentence comes.

Early Latin texts have no punctuation, but may have a small point between each word to show where they start and stop. Later there is nothing, not even a full stop (scriptio continua), because it is presumed to be clear to the reader where the sentences start and stop. Comma's came in as a representation of where to breathe, as texts were designed to be read aloud (silent reading does not seem to have been common practice until about the year 1000).

The only books that were well punctuated in early centuries were Vulgate Bibles. The translator, St Jerome (died 419/420), devised punctuation 'per cola et commata' ('by phrases'). This was based on manuscripts of Demosthenes and Cicero, designed to assist reading aloud. Each phrase began with a letter projecting into the margin and was treated as a minute paragraph, before which the reader was expected to take a new breath. Many marks were used as a form of musical notation, to show when the voice should rise or fall.

Paragraphs (meaning 'the line above', a line being used to divide them on the page) were used in early texts but before about the seventeenth century, were far longer than is usual today.

Before mechanical type, the order of quotation marks with stops and commas was not given much consideration. The printing press meant that the easily damaged smallest pieces of type for the comma and stop needed protection by placing behind the more robust quotation marks. Printers still hate fancy punctuation.

Then in about 1610, came Aldus Manutius and his sons, printers of Venice. They are credited with: consistently dropping the comma to the lower register; ending sentences with the colon or full stop; inventing the semicolon, and sometimes using parentheses. Most important, they and other printers made punctuation follow grammar, rather than the requirements of reading aloud.

English punctuation became systematised during the eighteenth century, and by the nineteenth most 'rules' were in place, although it should be noted that the dreaded apostrophe did not settle into current usage until quite late.

Like grammar, punctuation should be used to assist logic and the flow of language and thought, not get in its way. Over-punctuating can be as bad as under-punctuating. Many writers today only use a comma and a full stop; but that means you have to be very accurate about where you use them.

**Vocabulary**

English has an unusually large vocabulary, because it is the merger of two systems of language, Latin/French and Germanic. In writing, you often have a choice of several words to describe an object or an action, derived from different sources, because English has always collected words from other cultures.

Dog: Hound (Germanic/Saxon), Canine (Latin), Bitch (Norse), Mutt (US), Whelp (Germanic), Mongrel (Saxon), Cur (Norse), Pariah (Tamil).

It is often said that 'Saxon' words are short and sharp, while 'Romance' (Latin or French) are longer and 'fancier'. It is true that swearwords tend to come from Saxon, but that is because it was the language of the servant class: it is still socially acceptable to fornicate even if you feel embarrassed about f***ing. They mean the same, after all.

Words are colours on the writer's palette. Use them according to context and your characters. Be wary of fancy words that are there only to look pretty, a particular problem in bad poetry. These infest Victorian writing and are often borrowed from presumed medieval usage (except they frequently got it wrong). If you find yourself writing 'Tarry a while, sweet maid' or 'Ho, varlet, tend my prancing steed' or anything similar, stop and go for a walk.

Other 'poeticisms' include perchance, thither, aught. Use these for comic effect by all means, but not in earnest. Slang – the language of the streets and the pub – has its place, if it is clear and in character, as does jargon, the short-hand phrases used by a particular craft or profession. The key question is, does the reader understand? Words bring colour and variety but remember that their primary function is meaning.


	5. Baton Story

**Baton Story**

A baton story has multiple view points. Each character is somehow involved in a crime, and the fun part is marrying up the stories to make them fit together. It is written in third person (he or she).

TASK: You could team up with other class members to work on this, or choose characters and sections to get you going creatively. We will divide the characters up among the class. Show us the reasons why they have come to the bar and their initial impressions, third person point of view. Then follow the plot points as given in class…

A shared story involving the following characters . . .

Fenella Weymouth, a wayward cocktail waitress, tall dark haired, attractive

Stephen Goodridge, a young man, fallen on hard times, but with moral courage, but ready to practice small deceits.

Jane Bright, an artist, whose watercolours surpass expectation, looking good for her age.

Neil Hay, a priest in difficulties, middle aged and distinguished.

Anita Jones, a secretary who would like more.

Adrian O'Connel, her date, who is disappointed.

Samuel Farrell, falsely accused of indecent exposure.

Nigel Beddoes, the owner of the cocktail bar, aware that financial obligations are closing in on him.

Catherine, Nigel's wife, who has discovered a new religion.

John Simpson, involved in the sex trade and money laundering.

Taz Ngobo, bar staff, modest, polite, and advocate of Catherine's new religion.

Detective Inspector Andrew Lawson. Weary, recently dumped by girlfriend.

Alison Derwent, WPC who knows more than she should about John Simpson.

Laura Cunliffe, an underage drinker in a short skirt.

Yvette Pierson, Laura's mate, who is less adept at pulling the men and lives in her friend's shadow.

A killer, non-descript.

The victim, one of the above.

Setting the scene, Nigel's trendy Cocktail Bar, 'Rumours', is situated on the corner of Wellington Street in London's West End. Late Friday night, the groups of people outlined above are drinking late, either celebrating or drowning their sorrows.

One of them ends up dead. The story of how each of them came to be at the bar that evening is to be unravelled. Choose a character to focus on and link them to the action.

Reasons for coming to the bar

Initial impressions and interactions

Reactions to the killings, who and how is to be decided in class.

[We decided that Neil Hay would be killed and that he is a 6'2" man, with short dark blonde hair and a nervous demeanour]

Here is my contribution to the story, from the point of view of Fenella Weymouth, a wayward cocktail waitress. I wrote as much as I could in the time allowed, but you can see that I am setting up a reason for Neil to be killed, and potential suspects.

_Fenella Weymouth was late for work again. It was only five minutes, but the look on Nigel Beddoes, owner of the cocktail bar she worked at, gave her as she hurried in. if looks could kill! He frowned at her, his dark eyebrows knitted tightly together._

"_Hurry up and get behind the bar!" he snapped at her. "If you're late again this week, don't think you will be getting your tips!"_

_Fenella pushed past the short, balding man, rolling her eyes and giving him the finger as soon as his back was turned._

"_I saw that, Fenella," Catherine, Nigel's wife said crisply, glaring at her._

_Fenella stared at her. What the hell is she wearing? She thought to herself. And what is she doing here?_

"_Nice dress, Catherine," Fenella said sarcastically, taking in the sight of Catherine neck to toe in a long, plain, navy dress with a high collar. Perched atop her head was a white strip of material folded to form a sort of headscarf._

"_That's Mrs Beddoes to you, Fenella. Perhaps you ought to wear a little more clothing for a change!" Catherine snapped back, barging past her to join Nigel in the back office._

_Fenella grinned to herself, knowing just what to say to really hack Catherine off._

"_Well, that's up to your husband isn't it Mrs Beddoes?" she replied, silkily, "Nigel seems rather fond of this outfit actually…"_

_Fenella quickly escaped into the bar, away from the fury that was now masking Catherine's face, turning it red with anger._

_At the bar, Fenella nodded a quick hello to her colleague, Taz Ngobo, and headed straight for the nearest customer._

"_Oh, hello Neil," Fenella purred, leaning over the bar, her top dangerously low and she knew it._

_Fenella loved to taunt Neil Hay, priest of the local church. He occasionally came in to have a drink or two, usually on his own, but lately one or two drinks had turned into five or six. Fenella lowered her lashes and looked up at him through them._

"_What can I get you, Father?" she asked, licking her lips seductively._

"_A beer, please, Fenella. Will you bring it over?" he asked nervously, his words slightly slurred. He got up and headed to a table in the corner. Fenella's eyes followed him greedily, taking in his tall and toned physique and his soft-looking dark blond hair._

_She poured his drink, and tottered over to him in her high-heels, in what she probably thought was a sexy strut. She placed his drink before him, leaning farther down and closer to him than was entirely necessary. _

_She loved his nervous disposition; it amused her greatly to see him become flustered as she thrust her assets at him._

_Neil said nothing, not even thank you. Disgusted, she turned on her heel and began to stride away until she felt a clammy hand grasping her arm._

"_Fenella," Neil said urgently, gripping her arm so tightly it was hurting. "Come with me."_

_Fenella struggled; his fingers were really digging in. "No, Neil! I'm working!"_

_Several heads turned to see Neil man-handling Fenella, including those of Taz and Nigel._


End file.
